


Changing Cycles

by Inwitari_Turelie



Category: Norse Mythology, Thor (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 21:51:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inwitari_Turelie/pseuds/Inwitari_Turelie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story has beginning and and end. The details and the middle tend to change. Or Odin and Loki through the cycles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Changing Cycles

Once upon a time there was Bor, son of Yimir, the Cruel-Striker. Bor took to wife a Jotun Bestla Nal for her slightness amongst her kind. In time there came a son to Bor and his wife, an Aesir true though gifted with strength of his Jotun blood. They called him Spear-Shaker and Swift-in-Deceit and Breaker-of-Worlds. He was cruel and wise. He followed no order but his own which seemed to many to be but chaos.

He was a warrior to surpass his father and yet his greatest feats lay not in his physical strength. At first when he or maybe she learnt to weave seidr she would trick knowledge and power he desired from others but as his power grew it was them who came to him for boons. The wily one bestowed genius on those he judged worthy but never gave anything for nothing save death.

Some called him Riddler, for it was not often that he would speak straight. As a boy he had listened avidly to stories his mother told and it seemed to some that he cared not whether what he said was fact or not. Indeed often he would tell truths that sounded like lies and lies that sounded like truths and whether from mischief or slyness he found both as good as the other.

Some say his actions stemmed from an attempt to learn all, for the Sly-One liked none to be wiser than himself, whereupon he sacrificed his eye for knowledge but gained only madness. Others say no sane man would attempt such and the Terrible One was born as he was. He choose a wife from the Vanir, one named the most beautiful of all women, who brought wealth to the land she resided in, to be his wife and named the fifth day of the week after her.

With her he sealed his victory and his future ones, he called her his Victorious Wife. His madness was tempered on her wisdom and from this union came forth both War and Light. However, despite his wife's loyalty, of the army of sons he sired not all where hers. Indeed the greatest of his sons, the Thunderer who was destructive as his father but kinder to their people, he created himself from the earth.

This War-Merry God of Battle took his host all over the Nine Realms and though Midgard was first all fell underneath him. None were sure whether Naljarson meant to rule all of Yggdrasil or if Borson meant to destroy it all. In the end he did both, though not before his son ensured his death too.

 

* * *

 

This is also true. Bor the father of all the Aesir and his wife the Jotun Bestla were blessed with a son who they named Odin. In his youth the boy was often wayward but in his desire to power and knowledge he made a sacrifice which brought him wisdom and hanging from the ash-tree seeing all he laughed. Odin was haughty and ignored those who worried to see their one-day King learnt seidr, for Odin knew power lay everywhere even if one must wear skirts to learn it.

It was on one of his journeys, through lands that would not admit Asgard’s rule, that he met the Jotun Loki, son of Farbauti and Laufey. Odin was enamoured by Loki for he saw that beneath his strikingly fair appearance there was hid a soul both as clever and cruel as his own. So Odin brought Loki back to Asgard and recognised him as both blood-brother and as one of the Aesir.

Maybe Loki was the one who understood Odin best or maybe none could at all but when the he was weary of ruling Odin would venture out with Loki and their quiet friend Hoenir and here it was Odin best enjoyed himself.

Yet, while Loki enriched Asgard with treasures and power he would often endanger it too. For unlike Odin whose tricks all played a part in his greater plan, Loki but reacted to take advantage of events and when speaking his way out of trouble gave little thought to much further in the future.

Odin’s wife was Frigg, of bounty and fertility, after whom the fifth day of the week is called. She bore unto Odin both Tyr and Balder, fine sons any King would be happy to call heir. Yet Odin knew of those he would need on his side in the end-times and amongst others he lay with the earth goddess Jord and from this union was born Thor, god of thunder.

Thor was not one for cunning in the manner of his father and thus Loki took it upon himself to play that rule on Thor’s quests. Yet Thor also saw the darkness in the others heart and the two were as often at odds as they worked together. Despite this Thor was fond of his father’s blood-brother, a sentiment his wife, the golden-haired Sif, first shared then lost.

The people of Midgard moved their attention from Odin to Thor who was an easier to worship. Odin-King saw and it gave him little pleasure. Yet he made no action for he knew Loki was growing further from Asgard and thus the end times would be nigh. So when Loki’s actions killed his trueborn son Balder rather than defend what could not be defended he, in addition to Loki’s main sentence, took blood as wergild for blood. Odin took the two trueborn children of Loki, the only of his children who were of the Aesir and not monstrous, and transformed one so it killed the other and bound Loki in his entrails. Thus he earned the entity of their mother, Loki’s wife, the loyal Sigyn, who choose therefore to accompany her husband, saving him from death from the Serpent’s Venom.

So Ragnarok came to fall, just as Odin had seen it would.

* * *

 

Another time the tale went like this. Odin Borson became King of Asgard on his father’s death. It was his father Bor who had unified the Aesir and married his mother Bestla to cement the stability of the newly created Asgard. Though he was a great warrior Odin was wise and saw he could not fight constantly as his father did. Indeed he was not his father’s equal in strength but he was for more shrewd and made up for his any deficiency through seidr.

Yet in his wisdom he saw this was not pleasing to his people who did not hold it in equal esteem to physical power and so was careful they only saw or thought they saw him wield only enchanted weaponry rather than spells. In the war with the Jotnar none questioned Odin’s methods for they brought much success. They were able to force the Frost-Giants from Midgard, where the mortals had called out Odin’s name in prayer and hope, back to their realm of Ice. Odin lost his eye in that battle but he gained both victory and the Casket of Ancient Winters and through them peace.

To ensure the peace Odin-King had married Frigga of the Vanir, who had been called Freyja in her homeland, and she had borne him a son Thor before the war. Yet even in his victory Odin felt there to be a part in his life which was missing and when he looked upon Laufey’s child lying abandoned he was unable to leave the babe there. Thus the small Jotun prince came to Asgard cloaked in the skin of one of its people. Odin named the child as Loki and his son.

Both Loki and Thor grew alike to Odin but where Thor had his looks, strength and the love of the people Loki had both his seidr and his cunning. Both promised to exceed Odin in their gifts but Thor’s qualities where much admired in Asgard Loki’s where not and Odin’s second son grew to doubt his place. Thus when Loki discovered Odin’s lie, and believed that he must prove himself not the monster the Aesir spoke of the Jotnar as, he took dangerous actions which were ill-advised.

Then when this failed, thwarted by Thor, Loki let go of Asgard and all he had hoped for, exiling them from his heart. Without the temper of family or love, the once-twice-prince, spread chaos around the Nine Realms, starting with the bringing of an army to Midgard. But this time unlike the others from both inside and outside the Nine Realms played a part yet in their struggle to save this universe Ragnarok still came for the Aesir, a great battle which broke Asgard.

And as he looked upon his once-son, once-brother, once-self as they lay dying Odin spoke “Next time let us remember”

And Loki said “but where would be the fun in that?”

**Author's Note:**

> So, in the comics apparently Asgardians have been going through multiple cycles of Ragnarak followed by rebirth (Thor brought an end to that now apparently) so here's a little spin on that with some Myth Theory (Odin & Loki originally being one, same for Frigga and Freya too) and Kennings. Because everyone likes Kennings. Even if they sound highly awkward in English.


End file.
